One effort that brought Unity national recognition was the establishment of Unity College in 1965. Although its students number fewer than 500, the college graduates more environmental majors than any other college in the country. Many of the students choose to live in Unity well past graduation.
"All along people have been saying, 'What can we do to improve things?' " said Pat Clark, associate professor of communications and drama at Unity College, president of the Unity Historical Society and a longtime resident of the town. "We see small towns around us losing their character as people move out but don't move in."
Unity, which celebrated its bicentennial in 2004, owes much of its reputation as a cultural center for the interior of Waldo County to the late Bert Clifford, who was a longtime resident and worked as president and general manager of Unity Telephone Company, the town's local, independent telephone company.
In addition to helping found Unity College, he was also responsible for building: a business complex along Main Street; the town's first elderly residence; a large outdoor athletic complex called Field of Dreams; the 200-seat Unity Centre for Performing Arts and the Unity Foundation, one of the state's largest public grant-making foundations.
Clifford, who died in 2001, also helped bring to Unity the Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association, best known for its annual Common Ground Country Fair. The fair, which attracts about 50,000 people each year and celebrates rural and sustainable living, will take place from Sept. 24-26 this year.
BARN RAISERS CARRY ON
Clifford's efforts have been echoed by the Unity Barn Raisers, an active civic improvement group that restored the village center and holds a weekly farmer's market at the Unity Community Center. The Barn Raisers does not support projects that threaten the town's natural environment or small-town character.
Roming said the organization's name was derived from the community spirit of old-fashioned barn-raising, where townspeople came together to put up a single barn. In addition to the weekly farmers' market, Unity Barn Raisers help maintain local trails and run events at the community center including yoga classes, quilting, a bridge group and monthly community meals.
Perhaps thanks to Unity College, residents in Unity tend to be environmentally conscious - community-wide recycling has been available since the late 1960s, and in 1992, citizens voted to prohibit the state from transporting nuclear waste through their community.
Clark said the people of Unity are a mixture of farmers, back-to-the-landers, artisans and activists.
"People here like to make things happen," she said. "They're willing to come out and serve and work together."
Active as it is, without any major industry in town, Unity is essentially a bedroom community among sprawling farms, fields and forests. Commuters travel 40 miles to either Augusta or Bangor, 15 miles to Waterville and 25 miles to Belfast and the Atlantic coast.
"We're not close to anything, but we're not very far from everything," said Clark. "You can go to the ocean, and you can go to the mountains. ... There's plenty of hunting, fishing, rock climbing and hiking around."
SLICE OF HISTORY
Unity is bounded on the north by Lake Winnecook, also known as Unity Pond, which flows into the Kennebec River.
Beginning in 1769, Quaker families traveled up the Sebasticook River and settled the land around Lake Winnecook, then known as Twenty-five Mile Pond. They found giant white pines and hardwoods and good soil in the area that is now Unity, then called Twenty-five Mile Pond Plantation.
Unity is one of several central Maine towns with optimistic or patriotic-sounding names, such as Freedom, Liberty, Washington, Jefferson, Hope and Union. Lori Roming's mother, Joan, an artist and vice president of the Unity Historical Society, said Unity's name was inspired by "the unity of political thought" touted during Thomas Jefferson's presidency.
Quakers also first settled Unity's only sizable hill. The Quaker Hill Church built in 1826 is still standing, as well as the Unity Union Church built by Methodists on Depot Street (Route 9) in 1841.
When the railroad was built in Unity in 1870, the population began to decline as people moved west. In 1850, Unity's population was 1,557. Thirty years later, that had dropped to 1,092.
Despite the decline, the area around the train station became a village center at what is now the intersection of routes 139, 9 and 202. For years, there was a popular inn in Unity that served as a stagecoach stop for travelers going between Bangor and Augusta.
THE TOWN TODAY
Today, truck traffic is an issue in Unity village since weight limits on Interstate 95 force logging trucks and other large trailers into small towns along Route 9. A local garden club installed flower beds along Main Street to help catch drivers' attention and slow the traffic.
Dan Henyan, who has run the Unity Village Store for the past 11 years, says Unity is busier during the summer when campers flock to Lake Winnecook, but only gets crowded during the Common Ground Fair.
"I think this is a pretty stable community," said Henyan. "We don't have a main attraction."
Henyan, who commutes from Waterville, says Unity is an especially friendly town.
"Society seems to co-mingle here with more ease," he said. "My dairy farm friends come in with cow manure boots, and they're mingling with the bank manager."
Originally published Sunday, June 27, 2004
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